Formula Feeding Does Not Kill Your Baby, or make them Fat or Dumb

Nuthin wrong with a little formula

Before I had a baby I knew everything. I knew I would get pregnant easily, try for a natural birth, scream for an epidural after about five minutes, and breastfeed.

 When a friend had a C-section and bottle fed, I remember thinking Gosh, she has really taken the easy road, hasn't she? I mean, why bother if you don't give birth naturally and breastfeed?? Why bother indeed because about 12 months later I found myself with a baby in one hand, bottle in the other and searing pain along the abdominal incision where said baby was pulled out. Eating my words.

I mostly bottle fed after five months of combining breast and bottle with mixed results. I even took 20 Motillum a day, fenugreek and milk thistle imported from the USA on express shipping in a desperate attempt to increase my milk supply. Baby ended up in emergency due to starvation. But who really cares HOW I fed my baby - what kid is going to remember whether they were bottle or breastfed, or even fed at all? I really appreciate one comment made on facebook by my friend "Bottle or breast, fed is best."

Where did I get my terrible attitude from in the first place, and why does everyone think it's just so easy to breastfeed, that it really is a choice for women? For so many the choice is not breast VS bottle.
The choice is a Catch 22: A or B -

A. Breast feed, and please everyone, and do "what's best for baby", even though I

• am in extreme pain when I breastfeed due to infected ducts, blisters and lacerations,
• do not have enough milk so my baby screams constantly in hunger;
• have too much milk so my baby drowns and chokes
• feel awful breastfeeding and can't stop crying
• have a psychological block to breastfeeding
• have any number of other problems common to mothers attempting breastfeeding.

B. Bottle feed even in the face of criticism and midwives claiming it's poison.The baby health nurse at my local Sydney baby clinic actually said formula is poison.

Where did she get the idea that a life saving powder made up of fats, sugars and vitamins is bad? And what gave her licence to misinform an entire generation of new mothers? When did we get so nuts as a society?

Looking at those born in the 60s and 70s, or in France and China, where about 90 per cent of babies were/are bottle fed I really don't see any major plunge in their intelligence, spark in their obesity rates or any other major problems apparently caused by the dreaded formula. Mothers today are told that they should only formula feed if they want a fat dumb baby.

Last I checked an awful lot of Australians were fat and dumb and it had little to do with their food intake in those first six months.

I like how Tina Fey said in her Bossypants book "every woman has a magical number when it comes to breastfeeding, from 3 months to eight years. For me and my baby, that perfect number was about 72 hours." She was one of those mothers who pumped breast milk to bottle feed her baby, again illuminating how fraught and complex the issue of feeding a tiny newborn really is: some women cannot or don't want to do the latch nipple thing, but have enough milk and facilities to pump so do not have to buy formula.

I really like how Mia Freedman questioned midwives' stranglehold on the whole issue. Why is being BFHI friendly hospital so important in Australia? Why is what the WHO recommends even relevant here when we have clean water, expert medical advice in every suburb and good quality formula?

I just wish my prenatal classes had prepared me for the problem of low milk supply, and advised me to at least consider the possibility I would need to recover from major surgery, housebound AND have some bottles and formula at home in preparation for the hungry screaming newborn I was about to bring into the world.